1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system wireless communication, and more particularly to an information handling system multi-purpose NFC antenna.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Server information handling systems are often situated in rows of racks disposed in data centers. The data centers provide infrastructure resources that keep the server information handling systems running in a reliable manner. For example, a data center typically includes cooling, power and network resources that support densely loaded racks of server information handling systems. In addition, data centers typically have a staff of information technology (IT) administrators who maintain physical information handling system resources, such as by repairing or replacing information handling systems or their components as needed. IT administrators have physical access to server information handling systems and also manage some processing aspects of server information handling systems through a network-interfaced baseboard management controller (BMC) or similar management device. For example, a BMC allows IT administrators to remote start and shut down a server information handling system, to update firmware of components, to patch software, and to perform other management and maintenance functions.
Although IT administrators have physical access to server information handling systems and perform management functions with access to BMCs, IT administrators often do not have access to applications running on server information handling systems or data stored by the applications. Generally, applications and data supported by server information handling systems are managed with secured access separate from that used by IT administrators for management functions. In some data centers, server information handling systems are allocated for use by different entities who manage the applications and data separately from the IT administrators. Indeed, by running virtual machines that allocate resources to processing functions in a dynamic manner, the same physical processing resources can have sensitive data from several different entities securely accessible by only IT administrators of each entity. In essence, the modern data center is bifurcated between management functions that keep physical resources running and user functions that use the physical resources to perform functions in support of end users, such as enterprises.
Generally, server information handling systems have management functions performed with communications sent by wired communication interfaces, such as Ethernet. Some server information handling systems and BMCs include wireless communication, such as a wireless local area network (WLAN) or wireless personal area network (WPAN, i.e., Bluetooth) so IT administrators can communicate locally with the server information handling system using wireless signals. In many instances, data centers and enterprises prohibit the use of wireless communication to and from server information handling systems for security reasons. For instance, wireless communication signals may be sniffed by malicious attackers and used to aid attacks on physical and/or virtual server information handling system resources. Wireless communication is also not a practical solution in many data center environments where densely packed racks of server information handling systems would have difficulty coordinating wireless channels and protocols. Further, implementing a WLAN or WPAN chip and antenna in the restricted physical space available at a BMC presents a design challenge for server information handling system manufacturers.
One wireless communication alternative to WLAN and WPAN communications is near field communications (NFC). NFC operates at a relatively low frequency (13.56 MHz versus 2.4 and 5 GHz for WLAN and WPAN) over a relatively short range, generally measured in centimeters instead of meters. NFC transmits information with opposing inductors that detect a magnetic field related to current flow. A typical NFC antenna is a loop of conductive material that generates a magnetic field to induce a current in an opposing loop of conductive material. The current is measured at the opposing loop to determine information signals. NFC is an acceptable wireless communication medium for most server data centers because of its limited range, however, NFC often has limited usefulness due to its relatively low bandwidth. A typical NFC device ends one tag at a time with a typical tag size measure in bytes. Sending larger amounts of data through NFC generally requires the end user to send multiple tags while holding the sending device in close proximity to the receiving device. These limitations have impacted the adoption of NFC in data centers so that IT administrators tend to rely instead on communications through hardwired interfaces.